news, design, ecology, urban planning, gadgets, biking, hiking, religion, camping, the arts, politics, public transit, and what ever else is floating my boat.
Why is the average salad -- just a bowl of leaves and some nuts and berries -- so much more expensive than a slain cow that had to be reared to adulthood, and fed, and slaughtered? Why does my deli dude scribble $7.75 to $10 on the top of my lunch order when it is all veggies and weighs just ounces? Why does the government tell us to eat according to the pyramid on the right, but fund food industry according to the one on the left? And why oh why are we so fat? It's largely about subsidies.
A group of students in Durban, South Africa have taken to removing grime from buildings and retaining walls, in what could be seen as pro-community graffitti or positive negativity. Less is certainly more :)
I don't know exactly when it happened, but the Queensboro Bridge has cast off her tarpy wrapping, and is showing off a new coat of buttery paint. I noticed on my bike ride to work yesterday . . . maybe I'm just excited that Spring is Springing . . . like a big steel buttercup. Share|
THIS VIDEO WAS MADE PRIVATE BY ITS CREATORS. That's cool. Everybody has the right to privacy, I suppose.
No trauma, no irreversible damage, nothing more than a few questions for clarification, a relatively mild shift of world-view, and acceptance. Those who claim that teaching children about same-sex couples is harmful should watch this candid moment and repent. Rather, teaching children that some love is inherently despicable and to be shunned is the real abuse of the easily-molded young mind.
You've got to be taught To hate and fear, You've got to be taught From year to year, It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught!
Well it's about time! We've been asking forever, and Google has responded, so now you can map your intended path on dedicated bike lanes, shared lanes, and bike paths all over the world! From their blog:
"Today we've added biking directions and extensive bike trail data to Google Maps for the U.S. My team has been keeping close tabs on all the public support for biking directions that’s been steadily coming in, but we knew that
At the University of Texas San Antonio, an atheist group is having a "smut for smut" exchange, offering porn for traded-in bibles. You have to wonder if a nice copy of Darwin wouldn't be more to the point, but I guess it wouldn't have the same appeal . . . UTSA is complying with their stunt saying:
"As long as students are not violating laws or violating the Constitution, they have the freedom of speech and assembly."
San Fransisco, the city that berthed the movement, may be shutting Critical Mass down. In 1992, in an effort to bring attention to cyclists' rights, SF's biking community started a monthly semi-organized group ride. They called it Critical Mass. Since then the idea has spread to just about every major metropolitan area, and now San Fransisco's Police Cheif is thinking about ending it all.
"It is a mass of people that causes massive problems and San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon is questioning its existence. "We definitely are looking at the process, evaluating it, looking at where we can improve," said Police spokesperson Lyn Tomioka. The idea that this could be one of the last Critical Masses in San Francisco, delights some of the officers who have to protect it. "I think that if we have our chief behind it and he wants to do it, I'm sure there's going to be an end in sight," said Sgt. Neil Swendsen."
This chart from The OilDrum shows the amount of energy it takes to bring a pound of each food to the table. There is interesting discussion in the comments about whether the beef numbers are skewed by grain/grass feed, but I'm just glad that cheese isn't the worst. It's my guilty pleasure. Share|
A design competition to envision the metropolitan areas around New York/New Jersey adapted for rising sea levels of the future opens soon at MOMA. The five teams set out to solve the inevitable problems a 5-10 foot rise in sea water would bring to our sea-level metropolis. Each team was given a section of New York's diverse waterfront, and tasked to birth conceptual solutions. VIDEOS HERE of each team's work. And more pix after the jump . . .
HI, I'm a performer living in New York City. I dance, sing, design and loaf about worrying about the state of things. I'm co-artistic director of Hook & Eye Theater company. For more on that and my full resu, click around.
